by Marlon James
“The Lord is looking for followers. Remember the story of the rich man in Mark Ten? Or Eleven, don’t look it up. You know why we don’t have thirteen disciples? It’s not because Adam and Eve sin on Friday the thirteenth. You know why we don’t have thirteen disciples? Because the last one couldn’t throw down everything and follow the Son of Man. Now he’s condemned, still burning in the chambers of fire, mind you, and all his millions of dollars can’t buy one snow cone in Hell. Is that where you’re heading?
“He’s calling you.
“There are things you need to burn. Destroy. Give up. Leave behind. If this is you, meet me at the altar right now, praise God!”
The altar was full. A man screamed Jesus! and collapsed. The Apostle stepped over him to get to the others. Lucinda remained at the back, trying and failing to sweep her mind empty. Holy Ghost. Holy Ghost. Holy Ghost. Holy Ghost. No foreskin. Holy Ghost. Holy Ghost. Holy Ghost.
“Lucinda.”
His voice pulled her from the cluster of thoughts and she realized that the church was empty, save for the man still lying on the floor whom she did not see. Lucinda spun around; shocked and embarrassed that time had passed and left her with him. She could have carried herself out in the wave of those who left during altar call, even though not many did these days. Instead she was alone with him. He sat one pew ahead with his back to her and his unruly hair glistening like a thousand tiny eyes.
“Lucinda, I think we need to clear a certain matter up. What you might have thought you saw.”
“Y—yes, Pas—I mean, Apos …” She stared at the floor.
“Lucinda? Lucinda,” he said for a second time, disappointed with her unease. “Lucinda, pastors change their clothes in the office all the time. I know what it might have looked like, but it was all innocent, trust me. You might find it foolish, even funny. Here it is: I was changing clothes in my office and there I was, just as how God made me, and you know God, he’s no respecter of persons. I mean, come now, how many times has the Holy Spirit given you a revelation on the toilet? Nothing wrong with that, God is God. Anyway, there I was, about to put my clothes on, when BAM! God just give me a word so powerful that I nearly wet myself. Well, I had to drop to my knees and give Him ten Hallelujahs on the spot! Like I said in today’s message, when God opens you eyes, He wants you to do it now! You hearing me, Lucinda? You can never keep God waiting.”
“Yes, Apostle.”
“So I drop to my knees thanking God, and it was then, right when I got back on my feet, that you saw me. That is that.” He turned around and faced her. “I’m so sorry.”
“Yes sah.”
“You forgive me?”
“Apostle?”
“Forgive. It’s an old custom. Usually happens after somebody says they’re sorry.”
“Yes sah.”
“You don’t look forgiving.”
“Apostle?”
“Forgiving look. You know, with a smile. What is it going to take to get a smile out of you? Are you ticklish? Maybe I should call down one of God’s angels to tickle you?”
She laughed a little girl’s laugh.
“Aha! Look at that. Nothing like a smile to wake up a beautiful face. This means we’re still friends. Good. And Lucinda, I promise I’ll leave my changing to the bathroom from now on.”
Before she was thirteen, Lucinda’s mother had beaten her in two. She gave the two halves names, Day Lucinda and Night Lucinda. Her mother was the same, a church-going sister on some days, a spell-casting obeah woman and whore on others. In time the woman came undone, and to survive her, or at least to prevent whipping, Lucinda would split in two to placate her mother. There was Day Lucinda, when her mother felt pious, who spoke about Sunday school and friends she did not have. There was Night Lucinda, who helped her mother find the callaloo plant; not the one everybody ate, but the special callaloo to make tea for fellowship-ping with darkness. When her mother would beat her savagely, which was often, Day Lucinda would hide bruises under a demure calico dress and a taut heart. When her mother lost her way, which was often, Night Lucinda would steal her cat’s teeth, lizard skins, beads, and knotted cords and speak to the Sasa in secret. Lucinda carried her two selves into adult-hood with ease, using both to empower herself over other women. But then came the Apostle.
Day was for discipline; night, chaos. Day was for white gloves and skirts below the knee, night was for goat blood on black skin. Day was for stiff lips and Bible verse; night was for an orgy of one with a green banana as her incubus. Then came the Apostle and she saw Jesus in his face, but a serpent below his belt. There, in his crotch that bulged when he sat down, legs uncrossed as they always were, to show her the shift key on the typewriter. Two Lucindas collided at the junction of his crucifix, nesting in hairy skin, pointing to the bold red tip of his circumcision. She could no longer tell day from night.
So Lucinda whipped herself to sleep. Jesuits did this in Kingston, she had heard from a church sister. She imagined seven priests all in a row, whipping their bloody backs while staring at their hardened penises. They would whip until blood flowed like tributaries and their erections shrank in shame. She deserved no less for being a whore in the way she thinketh. Lucinda had known the Apostle just as surely as Ham had known his father Noah in the Bible. She became both at once. A drunken Noah, staggering naked in his tent, knocking over food and drink and crashing on cushions, spread wide for nature to see. She could see a body hardened by obedience, giving nothing to age, pissing and farting with that magnificence that men had when they did not care. Lucinda blinked and became Ham, his dark son, who slipped in the tent and was blinded by magnificence as well. She became father and son at once, shuddering through drunken blindness at the father’s sudden pleasure, shaking with fear and sin as the son took his father in his mouth. Lust came to her when most unwelcome and shattered the wall she had constructed between her two selves. It was the damn blood. That cursed time of the month that played out in wetness, pain, and bloat; that stirred a frenzy deep inside her pinker self. Twice in her thoughts he had made her burn bright with his own flame, as red as his books. Jesuits did this. She wanted to be good. No more Night Lucinda. She would whip darkness out in the name of Jesus. In the closet it waited; the black snake, the belt reserved for disobedient Sunday school children. She took her blouse off and stared at her weakness in the mirror, at her breasts, one drooped slightly lower than the other. She saw his wings, the demon of her sin waiting to rip her legs open. Consuming fire. She pleaded the blood of Jesus and swung the belt over her left shoulder. The leather tore through soft skin like a massa’s whip. Lucinda shook, tears fell, and she looked at herself again. Now for resolve. She beat out the Lucinda that could not serve the Apostle with purity, swinging the belt over the right shoulder, then left, then right, then left, then right again. And again and again and again until there was nothing but leather slicing through the air pungent with flesh and blood. The mirror spoke her shame in a chant until there was nothing left between her and it but light.
Dressed in two shirts and torn cloths wrapped up, down, and crossway over her back, Lucinda went to church. That she had appointed herself secretary was neither questioned nor challenged. Her first duty was to dispose of the multitude of cakes that came daily from every widow, spinster, and daughter who had reached consenting age. It was good that a man not marry. That’s what the Bible said. Even better for an Apostle. There was no need for the distraction of a wife; all he needed in a woman he had in … She trembled, yearning and fearing the end of her own thought. The office needed cleaning. She began by putting his red books on the shelf.
“Lucinda?”
“AAAH!”
“You reach here before me? I starting to wonder about you, you know. Maybe you’re coveting my job. I didn’t startle you, did I?”
“No! No, Pastor, I mean, Apostle.”
“I’m pulling your leg, Lucinda. But still …” He went over to his desk. “We have to do something about that constant slip of you
rs.”
“Slip? It a show?”
“Excuse me?”
“Me never mean to sin with this short frock.”
“Slip of the tongue, child.”
“Oh! Me did know that, Pastor, I mean, Apostle.”
“See, I caught you again. There you go, calling me Pastor. Do you miss Pastor Bligh?”
“No baba! Me miss him like me miss seven plague of Egypt in me panty. Lawks, sorry, Apostle.”
He waved her off.
“Him is a abomination before the Lord. Him is—” she started.
“Still a child of God and God loves him as much as he loves you. God gave you permission to rebuke him?”
“Jes—” He covered her mouth quickly. She smelt the soap on his fingers and did not think it strange. When he let go she could taste his salt on her lips.
“Y—I—we—ye—”
“Wasn’t exactly a shining moment, y’know, Lucinda. Driving a man of God out of the church. That was one cup that I prayed would pass. Look at me. Even a fallen man of God is still a man of God, y’know, Lucinda. He’s still my brother. If we were all so perfect why would we need the Son of God? Lucinda, maybe Bligh needs Him more now than ever and instead of driving him out we should be greeting him with a holy kiss. I mean, doesn’t Second Corinthians say that after we expel the immoral brother we must welcome him back or risk the Devil’s will be done?”
“I don’t, I don’t understand.”
“Shhh. Don’t work your head about it too much. The Lord has forgiven me and as His faithful servant, I have forgiven Pastor Bligh. You know where he is?”
“Yes, Apostle.”
“Send him a message for me. Tell him that Apostle York says that he can come back.”
SCHISM
By five o’clock, fat amber clouds had shaded trees orange, a shock before nightfall. Dampness and drip gave the weekday the stamp of Sunday. Evening rain made a day forget herself, but never her purpose. Rain did the same for people, frightening them to cover or freeing them to expose, but never allowing them to forget their purpose. This damn blasted rain was holding her back. And yet this could not wait until tomorrow. Nothing he said could ever wait. Lucinda was to tell the Widow Greenfield that the Pastor would be allowed back into church, but only to worship. She must be told tonight. Delay was disease. The only cure for procrastination was purpose. She covered her head with newspaper and ran down to the end of Brillo Road.
As she came up to the crossroads, Lucinda saw the Widow’s house, its sole front window flickering with dim light. But as she stepped and splashed in the road’s center, a multitude of black wings, a hundred or a thousand, burst out in a thunderous flutter. She was blind in the darkness, but when the wings flapped, the air shook. Demon-sized crows. Man-sized demons. They shrieked and spun with the wind. Lucinda screamed and heard her voice vanish in the vortex. She would be sucked up in the swirling darkness. Lucinda shut her eyes tight and hummed a hymn. She opened them slowly to see them gone and the rain weakened to a drizzle. She ran to the house.
“Mrs. Greenfield? Mrs. Greenfield?” She listened for a flutter. Her last knock swung through empty space. The Widow had opened the door. “Mrs. Greenfield.”
“Kiss me raas. What you doin here?”
“Mrs. Greenfield, I—”
“You goin stay outside and get wet up or you comin inside?”
“Me never did plan to, but—”
“Suit yourself.”
“Mrs. Greenfield—”
“Make me ask you something,” the Widow interrupted in that tone the Rum Preacher knew. “You see any Mr. Greenfield here?”
“Well … ah … no.”
“Then why the backfoot you calling me Mrs. Greenfield? You forget say me know you long time? Long before you get high and mighty like God love you special.”
“Our Father love everybody special.”
“Yes, but everybody know Him have a real special love for you.”
“Anyway, me never come here fi talk bout me.”
“Eehi? Then what you come for? Come make we go lap frock tail and labrish, cause me no know what you could want from the Widow woman.”
“Is not me why him dead, y’know.”
For nearly a minute the Widow stood at her doorway, starched and beaten. Lucinda’s eyes swept the ground as she listened for a sudden flutter. The Widow’s hands trembled. She felt them coming, memories banished years ago of her husband’s crushed face hidden in a closed casket. Memories that came back because of this bitch, her enemy ever since adolescence gave the Widow bigger breasts and beefier buttocks. The Widow came into an even greater hatred of her, something renewed for the day.
“At least him don’t have to hide from you no more. Climb any ackee tree since mornin, Lucinda Queenie?”
In obeah-man country there are several teas. People think the secret history of witchcraft is of oils, but that is no secret. Oils are given to those who pay, but tea is for those who believe. There is cerasse to ease the stomach, soursop leaf for nerves, and comfrey for health and strength. But there is another tea with a name lost to those who live in light. A tea that is prepared in hidden places that nobody drinks alone. Lucinda’s mother hid the secret callaloo under her bed and never gave her daughter that warning. Lucinda had mixed the tea as her mother had done, boiling the weeds and gulping the acrid broth down in three, then covering her mouth as it scalded her gut. She filled her mouth with river water and spat into the fire. A huge cloud of steam rose and surrounded her in mist. Lucinda felt cold, very cold. A wet wind stirred and hissed. She was no longer on the ground or in clothes. In a blink she soared so high that Gibbeah became a dot of flickering light. In another blink there was nothing but moon and sky. She screamed and laughed. Lucinda willed herself there and suddenly she was. Nothing would stop her revenge. From up in the ackee tree she saw them. The bride and groom, years from becoming Widow and corpse, consummating their marriage. In the moonlit glimmer of the bedroom she saw the manic movement of sweaty flesh. The whiteness of the Widow’s feet, up in the air and bobbing as her husband fucked her. Each thrust cut through Lucinda’s blackened heart. Mrs. Greenfield came and opened her eyes expecting to see love all wet and real. But instead she saw a shadow falling out of the ackee tree. The shadow’s hair was parted at the middle; the way Lucinda kept it until the day of her death.
Lucinda’s hands were shaking as she stood at the Widow’s door. She turned to leave but the rain was waiting and she feared the beat of wings. Did the Widow hear the flutter? Her face was unchanged.
“Tell him that the Apostle say him can come back.” Lucinda turned away. The rain swallowed her up and she was gone.
The Rum Preacher had heard. Widow Greenfield stood in the doorway looking out, but was aware of the clumsiness of his stealth.
“Look like you church want you back.” As she turned, he looked away.
“You think them goin kill the fattest calf?”
She was in the mood. Lucinda had whet her appetite for more. No damn way she was going to be miserable by herself. The Preacher withered, slipped back into his room, and left her to the dead space. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. He prayed in thanksgiving.
Rain fell all night. Some wondered if God had turned back on his promise to never flood the Earth no matter how much man sinned on it. Rain fell on the righteous and unrighteous. Rain fell on Clarence when he left Mr. Johnson’s house after fucking Mr. Johnson’s wife, as he did most nights while the husband slept soundly in the same bed. Thunder judged him and he left her in a flurry. Clarence was a good distance from the house when semen wetted his thighs, reminding him that he had forgotten his briefs. Then lightning struck, exposing him in a flash of light, and he forgot again. Clarence ran home, stumbling twice in the muddy water.
Lightning was the pointed finger of God’s judgment. The people of Gibbeah knew this well. Lightning had killed the Contraptionist. Its blinding light exposed iniquity, its singular force burst through the dark skin of
sin. The Contraptionist was a lonely man who lived not in Gibbeah but less than a mile beyond the river. Each day he was seen twice: driving his cows to the field at dawn and back to the pen at dusk. But from his house came the sound of industry. The bustle of hands and machines and hammers and saws and pulleys and ropes and wood at work.
One evening, just before the rains came, a curious odor drifted from his shed, something sickly and sweet. As quick as the wind, the pleasant smell of something cooked gave way to the horrific odor of someone burnt. When they found him, the rain had begun in a rhythmless drizzle, but thunder bellowed and gales came upon the village in swells. He was around the back of the house. The contraption looked like a guillotine: two towering planks of wood on both sides of a narrow platform, which was encircled by a fence. Pulleys at the top of the planks suspended ropes downwards. Each rope had a harness to which he was strapped at the thigh. This was his breakthrough invention; now he could adjust his height to fuck cows of any size. From afar it seemed as if women’s garters were pulling him up. When the lightning struck he had already mounted himself, supported by pulleys and excited by the friction of her buttocks. The sudden blast of white light and heat had burnt him to a crust, singeing the rope and planks of wood and fusing the pulleys stiff. The cow was unharmed. For two days, nobody approached him and he swung in the wind with the burnt rope squeaking as it rubbed against the wood. Even in death, his deeds were exposed. The lightning had struck him when he was most ready, and now, more than his exposed parts would remain stiff forever. The men took him down after Mrs. Fracas’s dog made away with all the toes on his left foot. Lightning was the pointed finger of God’s judgment.
The Rum Preacher had been praying without stop from before dawn. He heard the rain break. The Widow was right. But didn’t the scriptures say that only by blaspheming the Holy Spirit would the Lord leave you? He was an abomination. The most wretched sinner there was. Before, he knelt, but now he fell to the ground grieving for himself.
